1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to an image formation method and move particularly to an image formation method based on thermal transfer, as applicable to copying machines and facsimile, which can dispense with any base film.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, the thermal transfer image formation method requires a base film in the form of a thermal transfer film. Disadvantageously, the thermal transfer film can not be used repetitiously and besides, it will soil portions of acceptor paper or a recording medium on which images are not formed. In order to obviate these disadvantages, such a method as disclosed in Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 60-4093 has been proposed. To outline this prior art method, thermally dissoluble semisolid ink supported by a filter material is dissolved by selectively heating it in response to an image signal so as to be transferred to a recording medium through the filter material.
In this prior art method, however, it is uncertain whether only imaging portions of the semisolid ink can sufficiently be heated with a small amount of energies applied by way of an electrode or a thermal head, and after printing, the dissolved ink will remain in the filter and tends to soil the texture of the recording medium.